


Somewhere In the Urals

by WolfWarrioress



Series: No Promises [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27272086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfWarrioress/pseuds/WolfWarrioress
Summary: "I'm sorry, Ankara, I really am," he finally admits, and her heart breaks. "To be honest, we're immortal. We shouldn't make promises. Living so long, we have no idea if we will actually be able to keep them. So many things could change over the course of our lives." No promises. It's the last lesson Daz teaches her. It's a lesson she will never forget. A mantra she clings to.All stories have to start somewhere. This one begins with Ankara's rez.
Series: No Promises [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991296
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ankara's Rez: Somewhere in the Urals

Light, sudden light, and she's gasping for breath, the sky blue and bright and cold above her.

"Guardian! Guardian?"

Her lungs are tight, so tight, her body stiff and tense. She's on her feet somehow, though she doesn't remember standing up—or how she got here, _or where the hell she is, or her own name_ —

Panic flashes through her, fills her limbs with adrenaline, rising heat to fight the cold—

Cold. She's cold, she realizes, standing in snow, wet from being buried in it, surrounded by trees, her breath misting in the frigid air—

"Guardian!" A ball of light flies in her face, floats before her, a single glowing eye surrounded by angles catching her attention as she trips back away from it. It's a floating eight-pointed star, four angles on the front half and four on the back, a dark sphere with a glowing blue eye in the middle.

"Focus, Guardian," it says, voice kind and distinctly male, the angled edges turning and flexing around the glowing eye in the middle. "On me. I'm your Ghost. You're my Guardian. It's okay that you can't remember anything right now. We can't stay here. You've been dead a while, I'm afraid, so things will be confusing. Just come with me and I will keep you safe." It stills in the air and it's voice becomes more somber. "I will always keep you safe," he promises solemnly, with a weight she won't understand for years.

"Dead?" squeaks the first word out of her throat in centuries. Panic rises again, threatening to choke her.

"No, no, focus. You're alive _now_ , Guardian. Come on, we can't stay here. Follow me," he tempts and cajoles her, weaving a path backward through the trees. "Don't think, Guardian, just walk. We're going home." She latches on to that advice, looks down at her feet to put one in front of the other, and it's like a dam breaks and she must keep moving, her feet moving faster and faster. The movement helps her, gives her energy, somewhere to go. Helps her focus.

Then she's afraid to stop moving.

XXXXX

It starts out so simply.

Saint-14 is the Titan Vanguard, but with all the responsibilities on his shoulders, Zavala and other senior Titans assist him where they can. Zavala has mentored younger Titans for years, passing on the ideals Lord Saladin instilled in himself and Shaxx. He's seen all the different expressions on newly Risen when they first approach him. Knows how to train them best, knows each is still unique and different, knows how easily they can be killed, knows it's safest to get them on a fireteam as soon as possible. He has to show care, without getting too attached to them. He feels the full weight for the responsibility of training the Titans, to uphold the reputation of the Iron Lords, heavy on his shoulders.

The new Awoken Titans, like him, always arouse his curiosity, reawaken his own wish to remember the past, _his_ past. How did so many Awoken return from the Reef? It's a mystery he has no time to solve—cannot _let_ himself solve. It's a desire he pushes down every time it rises, because he can afford no distractions, nor the disappointment of there being nothing to find. It is as much to protect Guardians from themselves. As he tells Ana Bray: they are alive _here_ and _now_ , not in the past. They must focus on this moment _, this life_ , this duty. And he must set an example for all: the Last City is greater than all of them, than any of them. They have died once before. They are here now _for a reason_. He has to believe that.

This one is slightly different, though: appearing before him, her hair is shockingly blonde, blue skin only a shade or two darker than his own personal hue, delicate yet complex white markings up and down her face, with only the clothes on her back and whatever pieces of armor, weapons and tech she managed to pick up in her trek to this ramshackle tent city they are building a wall around.

And she's _numb_ , eyes blown wide open, numb and shocked and confused, clinging to the instructions from her Ghost and from _him_ , unblinking glowing blue eyes turning from one of them to the other in turn. Putting one foot in front of the other for fear she'll collapse if she stops. These are the moments that draw him up to his full height, cause him to straighten up as he's reminded of the faith others have in him, faith he cannot allow to be misplaced. He must be the Wall; right now it's more metaphorical than physical.

Perhaps it's that. Perhaps it's her expression. Perhaps—he _is_ still a man, Risen or not, by the Traveler—it's simply her beauty. But her face sticks with him.

Usually it's easy to recite the lines he knows by rote, move them on, assign them a fireteam so he can worry about building the Wall and their supplies and planning. Hope they'll come back. _He can't let himself get attached._ But seeing her so vulnerable and so trusting stirs up a mix of emotions in his chest, and he takes her with him out for a shift building the Wall, the two of them lifting giant hewn stones together, slotting them into place, while he speaks of the duties and beliefs of Titans, the Light, their purpose, how this growing community works. She listens intently, bright blue eyes fixed unblinking on his face. But whenever his mind lightly brushes hers—a gift and curse of their shared Awoken heritage—the storm inside of her almost makes him recoil, the exact opposite of her outside veneer. But that's a good thing as well: she has strength, and her Light will be powerful when she learns to use it.

XXXXX

Numb. She's completely numb, has been since her vision suddenly filled with light and breath gasped back into her lungs while her Ghost chanted _Guardian Guardian Guardian_ in joy and relief a few days ago. She's numb and in shock and still feels _cold_ even though the Light is _burning_ inside of her, filling every vein and limb, jagged and wrong and cutting herself on the edges, and she's afraid if she lets herself feel anything it will crackle along her skin, out of control. She cannot stop to think. _You've been dead awhile, I'm afraid_ , her Ghost's words still replay, morbid, in her head and she's afraid if she stops moving to think she'll never start again, she'll just drown in it all. Even now, she can still feel Ghost in her head, though he's trying to be quiet, trying to be supportive while she figures everything out.

She remembers nothing. She tries again and again to wrack her brain to remember her name, how she got out into the wilderness, _anything_ …but there's _nothing_. Something feels wrong, like she forgot something, like it was _bad_ to be where she was, but the _why_ eludes her. Her mind is a blank slate— _tabula rasa_ , the words come to her from nowhere, with only a sense of rightness and it's so, _so_ frustrating—the writing of which starts with that burst of breath and light and Ghost in her ear.

Zavala. She focuses on him, quiets the storm in her mind, pushes it out to the edges so he's in the calm center. The man before her who is colored blue like her has a calm, rhythmic voice and is a solid, steady bulwark of information. He gives her direction, gives her focus, gives her reason and purpose, and she grasps for it, leaps for it, clings to it. His Light, the Light inside of him, is tamed, coiled like a spring, not wild and thrashing like hers is. His mind is also steady. Somehow, the shared Awoken telepathy returns to her naturally, and she finds herself brushing his mind briefly and frequently, drawing on that steadiness, to calm her own storm. It gives her hope, gives her something to strive for.

Perhaps she cannot remember who she was _before_ , but she knows why she is here _now_ : to protect the Light, which right now means these people gathering beneath the Traveler in the hopes of finding safety. And that is what she will do.

She focuses on that and wills her mind to settle. Closes her eyes and inhales deeply. Feels herself steady, something inside her settle into place. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Survive one day at a time.

XXXXX

Her name eludes her, but she finally settles on _Ankara_. Something about the ' _Kara'_ just feels right. Another part of her slides into rightness in her mind, having a name. If she has friends she'll let them call her Kara, she decides, and just building that little bit of a personality steadies her a little more. She's learning who she is. One more step taken. She feels at war with herself, like there's two people in this body, her conscious, current one, and the one she was before. The other isn't her Ghost, she can feel him in her mind too, yet separate, clear and defined. Perhaps the other is her soul, she muses; immortal, beyond time and space and _memories_ , the spark in her that Ghost saw. Perhaps that's why she's drawn to marks or shaders of a certain color, drawn to one name or the other, or a scent smells slightly better than the others. Sometimes she just knows things and she can't explain why.

Sometimes she feels sad for no reason, other times she feels longing. Privately, Ghost and herself decide it is her soul, remembering things she cannot. Processing, grieving. He agrees her estimation between what she thinks of as soul and he describes as spark need not be different things. Simply two names for the same idea. But there is no way to know for sure who she was. The past is the past, and it cannot help her now. Knowing how many centuries she may have laid buried in the Urals will not help her slay Hive better, will not help her shoot Vex faster.

She stares at herself in the cracked mirror they've hung up in the small tent she's sharing, turns her head from side to side. She touches her reflection, then lifts her hand to trace the pale markings across her cheek. She has no scars, Ghost tells her those vanish whenever she rezzes. But these markings…she born with them in her first life, she reflects.

But she was reborn with _this_ , she muses, drawing the Light up from within her to crackle along her hands, bolts arcing between her fingers, lightning tracing her skin. For some reason she's not surprised to find out she's a Titan. It seems fitting and right for reasons she can't fathom or remember, but it suits her. One more piece of her slides into place, steadies. Piece by piece, she forms a new self.

She's supposed to name Ghost too, but it took her so long to come up with her own name, that nothing comes to her yet. She promises him that she will name him. One day. For now he is merely Ghost, Ghostie when she's affectionate. He assures her he is content, and he trusts her to name him when the time is right. His trust and love, so freely given, stirs her heart like nothing else seems able to, and she vows she will be worthy of him.

She learns slowly, but steadily, one foot in front of the other. Other new Guardians might be faster than her, graduate to the next rank higher sooner, but she's _meticulous_. This duty is her reason for being, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Ankara does survive. She doesn't exactly thrive and enjoy life like some of the others. She's slow to learn, painstakingly thorough, finding her footing slowly but surely. She's always serious, logical, methodical. Her reports are precise, her battle scores acceptable. Before long, Zavala comes to regard her as one of his most reliable Titans.

She chooses the name Ankara—and almost before he knows it, ten years have flown past and she's no longer one of the newly Risen. She throws everything into her duty. He notes she doesn't really have a lot of friends, though she does form a fireteam with two humans, a male Hunter named Daz and a female Warlock called Verna. He sees her far less after that, which is to be expected; newer Guardians need his guidance more, and they need every fireteam they can get out in the field, or building the Wall. And right now she can learn more from an experienced Hunter in the field than from a Titan stuck behind a desk. Still, her reports to him are consistent, weekly, accurate, and he finds he looks forward to them, takes it as confirmation she lives.

Twenty more years pass, and he regards her almost as a pen pal, a confidant, someone dependable and discreet that he can send on furtive missions for himself and the Vanguard. Slowly, their messages turn from merely reports and acknowledgements of them, to actual conversations on a private channel. Trust is a hard thing for Guardians in general to find, harder for the leadership to come by. He knows he shouldn't put his worries and fears about the City and the Vanguard—his concerns about Andal Brask's loose view of regulations, his worries about the growing tensions between Osiris and the Speaker—but emptying his soul into a blank message slate is just too cathartic, the relief too great to give up. That she always manages to reply with a calm, easy response seals his fate. And she keeps his secrets.

The memo that Fireteam Castus has dissolved crosses his desk, but until Ankara comes by with her first solo patrol report his worries don't start. She's never displayed much emotion, being stoic, but he sees more weight on her shoulders, sadness lurking in the corners of her eyes. He finds the need to offer comfort, places a hand on her shoulder.

"Will you find another fireteam?"

"Not for a while," she breathes, and he can sense from her mind she means not for a _long_ while. "I'll go solo for now. Try to keep busy."

And that makes him worry more—they form fireteams for a _reason_ , after all.

XXXXX

Daz and Verna are gone. Not dead, no, they haven't died their final deaths. Instead, they've chosen to abandon the fireteam the three of them have built for more than two decades. They _left_ her. And in so many ways it's worse than death. Death, which chooses for people who stays and who goes; had they died she would be sad but would have known they _wanted_ her.

Ankara hides her hurt by going to Venus and killing Vex until her hands are numb from the Arc lightning of her punches, until she's died and rezzed more times than she can count, as if with each new body she might get a new, unbroken heart.

But she doesn't, and even the fighting and explosions can't drown out the memory:

_Her lower lip trembles, and she fights it, angry with herself. "But you promised." Her only argument is weak._

_"Promises, promises," haughty Verna sneers, looking far too smug._

_Daz shoots her a furious glare, until the Warlock rolls her eyes and walks away. Then he sighs, long and deep, his shoulders slump and he drops his face into his palm. He doesn't see her watching him desperately._

_"I'm sorry, Ankara, I really am," he finally admits, and her heart breaks. "To be honest...we're immortal. We really shouldn't make promises. Living so long, we have no idea if we will actually be able to keep them. So many things could change over the course of our lives."_

No promises. It's the last lesson Daz teaches her. It's a lesson she will never forget. A mantra she clings to.

Daz has taught her many things over the past two decades: how to breathe while sniping, how to track, a few phrases of eliksni, hacking tips, how to use a grenade to flush an enemy from cover, Ghost maintenance, how to read the weather. He taught her to survive. She clings to those lessons all through her life. Teaches them to her own students.

(It meant that when he finally died his final death, she forgave him enough to lead the fireteam to retrieve their bodies, to leave flowers at his grave. He and Verna died together. The rumors that slithered through the Tower decided that had they still had a third, a Titan, it might have not been so. It was vindication Ankara never asked for, or wanted. It didn't ease the bitter taste of betrayal from her mouth.)

It's more Daz than Verna she'll miss, she muses, finally curling up under a rock overhang to avoid the acid rain. She draws her knees to her chest in the tiny space and leans on them, arms loosely around her legs as she watches the rain storm. Ghostie appears from phase before her with a sizzle and brushes his fins against her cheek for a moment. Daz had truly been a friend; they'd patrolled the Cosmodrome together a lot when they first met; Verna had only come along when the talk of a fireteam started and she and Ankara had never really grown as close.

" _There's just no room for you here,"_ Verna's haughty voice just won't stop replaying in her head, though the Vex had drowned it out for a while. _"Nobody wants a grumpy Titan around, you know."_

It doesn't matter that Daz had angrily contested that statement; it stings still and Ankara knows it was at least partly true. And he still chose Verna over her. All her new life, she's seen the other Guardians veer away from her slightly. She isn't the fastest or bravest or smartest, she knows and doesn't care. But the easy comradery that others seem to foster with everyone around them never happens for her. For the first time, with this fireteam, she'd let someone in and of course she'd been burned. She'd chosen poorly, that was all. She doesn't really blame Daz for sticking with Verna, even though his rejection still hurts. He isn't really bad, and Verna's fears were unfounded because Ankara had never seen him as anything other than a friend. They'd never had a tryst. Even now she had messages from him asking if she was alright. In time, she'll reply.

Loneliness is an old friend to Ankara, and she suspects it had dodged her past self's steps as well. Everyone around her paired off or was romantically involved at some point…but never her. She's never felt attracted to…anyone.

Well, that wasn't completely true, she amends as Ghostie beeps with another incoming message, this one from Zavala. He's sending her to Mercury, secretly chasing the Sunbreakers again. She had quietly admitted to herself some time ago that she enjoyed visiting the Vanguard office to admire Zavala's broad shoulders and thick cords of muscle. But the Titan Vanguard—her Vanguard, her mentor, the only constant friend in her long life—was decidedly off limits. She'd made up her mind about that ten years ago, when Saint-14 had vanished in search of Osiris, and Zavala had accepted the Vanguard title. He'd turned more distant towards her then anyway. She would have respected him less if he hadn't.

She pushes herself to her feet, settles her stinging heart back in her chest, draws in a deep breath to steady herself. Zavala has a new mission for her, and she realizes she can only do what she has always been doing since that first rez in the Urals: put one foot in front of the other, not stop moving lest she drown in the emotions. Right now, the Tower has too many memories. She stays out in the field, gives up the apartment that feels too empty without a Warlock and a Hunter flitting in and out. It might be running away, but at least she's moving. She can't shoot memories.

For the first time in the life she remembers, she has something she wishes she could forget.

XXXXX

Ankara loves Venus. From the first time she was sent to patrol it, the hot, humid, jungle planet has been her favorite. She loves to see all the green foliage, feel the press of life around her in a way that even Earth can't compare to. Around every corner is more gorgeous scenery to look at; Vex have almost gotten the drop on her more than once because she paused to take in a view that took her breath away, like the streams of glowing blue lava flowing down mountains or the cascades of eruptions. And so she spends as much time on the second nearest planet to Sol as she can.

Inevitably, she finds her way to the Ishtar Collective, and even though she's a Titan, not a Warlock like most of the other Guardians she encounters there, she spends a fair amount of time reading. She likes to learn, she realizes.

"I'm sorry I took so long," she says to Ghost one day as she closes books and puts them away, realizing that hours have slipped away since they arrived and she hasn't spoken a word to him.

"It's alright. I like it when you're happy," Ghostie replies, upbeat as always. "I hate to interrupt you, but we can't ignore a Vanguard call. Otherwise I'll be here. Waiting. For you. Forever." She freezes, looks at him with a sudden, serious weight to her gaze that he's never seen before. He freezes as well.

"Argos," she says, and finally names him, after an incredibly old and loyal character she found in one of these various books. A century later.


End file.
